There exists a documentary about Hugh Everett,Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, instigator of the theory of sci-fi staple of the now infinite quantum possibility-universes. Except it’s possibly real science, and may or may not blow causality out of the water.

So, as I secretly expected, I fell down the stairs with regard to my resolution to complete the 100 pushups program… again. The third time. My last set was February 12th, and it was a struggle to do even the minimum. The idea that I was hitting a wall in spite of the program’s seemingly gentle curve seems to have stymied me again.

It’s now February 23rd, a full 11 days later, and the next set is even more daunting. But I’m going to make the attempt, and damn the torpedoes. (The torpedoes being jacked-up wrists and generally below-average physique.)

(Grunting sounds commence.)

Well, I was just barely able to complete the set. On my progress sheet, I’ve placed unhappy faces on set 5 to indicate that I was “only” able to complete the minimum number of pushups, this time, 25.

A few weeks ago, I was listening to a RadioLab podcast, and among the segments was a somewhat eccentric scientist who had a cabinet that he was slowly filling with every element on the periodic chart. The very idea is wonderful, whether you’re a chemist or not, and for someone like me, who never took chemistry (even in high school) it has a certain appeal. It’s a learning project, to be sure.

The idea is obvious enough for me not to trust myself to think it’s original, but why not take an old Scrabble set, and make a crafty little table of periodic elements myself? Hang it on the wall, look at it smugly, etc. Continue reading →

It looks like a file defragmenter, but really it’s a way to see how very fragmented your day is. ManicTime is a fat, but free .NET app that snoops on all your window titles and creates a series of charts that describe the applications that take up your day. It’s a good way to augment your timecard, or just see how long you’ve spent playing Team Fortress 2 versus World of Warcraft. I’ve been using it for about eight hours now and I already feel terribly, terribly guilty.

ManicTime main screen

Pluses:

Free and professional-looking

Silently records your doings with no interaction

Unobtrusive – unlike a PDA-type app, it won’t remind you what to do, it passively records what you’re doing

Accurate enough out of the box, better with a little personal configuration

Can export graphs (to PNG) and data (to CSV)

Does not share or upload your data with a 3rd party source, all info is store locally

Negatives:

Induces guilt

Requires .NET (and therefore not native to Mac or Linux machines)

Grossly overweight (its two runtimes exceed 50MB when minimized)

Without user interaction, cannot differentiate between different activities using the same app (bad if you use your browser for multiple tasks: watching YouTube, checking email, writing a blog post)

I’m voluntarily pursuing the hundredpushups.com program over six weeks and blogging about it so I don’t crap out. So far I’ve completed week 1, and started week 2:

Week 1 complete.Week 2 in progress.

Week 2 is getting trying already, and I’m afraid of looking at week 3. My previous maximum, 20 pushups, will be the max-out for the next session. I could just barely complete the max-out for this last session, 17. It still may not seem that I’m doing very much (and I’m not), but the first session had me complete 55 pushups; now it’s 71.

According to the program, I’ll rest my bony arms a day or two then perform another exhaustion test to sum up my progress so far, then head into week 3.